Kielbasa and water

My quandary is this: am making kielbasa for the first time (thanks to Dwain P picture post) and forgot to add the cup of ice water to the pork mix before stuffing.

Obvously, all those wonderful spices contribute to flavour but what does adding water to the mix do? Lubricant?

I did a double grind on the meat and it stuffed quite smoothly. So I'm wondering why add 1/2C water? There is so little of that water in 5 lb of meat, I'm sure it adds a bit of moisture to the mix but hardly enough to matter.

Or does it?

edit--> I did find this on a university website:

water and ice are added to provide moisture and keep the sausage cold. Cold temperature delays microbial growth and also ensures a better final product texture. Ice and water can also be added to increase the yield of sausage, but there are upper limits for wholesale or retail marketing. Water also aids in dissolving salt to facilitate its distribution within the meat. Texture and tenderness of the finished sausages are markedly affected by added water content.

Click to expand...

But again: 1/2C in 5 lb of meat? Barely notice it. I have to say, I found some other sausage recipes that don't add water.

I guess I'll find out in 4 hours

So watcha think? Anybody else forget to add water to the meat mix? How'd it turn out?

edit-->

Three hours in:

Temp registers 146. Very easy to maintain 140o (couldn't get to 130) then to where it is now (169)

I ran out of casing (actually, I had enough on a new section but not enough meat. Made a couple of mini-fatties instead. Pic is blurry as it's from the tablet and I didn't want the lid off too long so I rushed it

I'll answer my own question: don't know if it's because of no water but it is a bit crumbly (one of the possible results I've read about elsewhere). Hard to believe 1/2C of water would have that effect but....

Flavour is what I was looking for. Till next time then.

Len... My recipe for Kielbasa which uses 4 lbs. of pork, calls for 1/2 cup ice water. It goes on to state that the ice water helps the sausage bind properly. I've only done Kielbasa once. Your looks great.

Tks. I cut no fat off the butt and guessed it was in the 20-25% range. Flavour was great. There didn't seem to be an issue with it sticking together (fat helps tremendously) but I hope to remember the water the next time. 5 lb of kielbasa is a LOT of meat .

As a follow up, I had read somewhere (TVWBB?) that the flavour and texture increased (improved) after freezing the kielbasa. Well, 5 lb of sausage is a lot of sausage so I chopped it into 6" lengths and froze it overnight.

WOW! The crumbliness is gone and oh, the flavour is spectacular. Sooooo much better than even the expensive stuff I used to buy.

We all know that home made tastes better than store bought and is (usually) less expensive too. I figure that this batch of kielbasa cost me about $14 (meat plus spices) whereas the store stuff would have been close to $70.

No brainer in this case. Make your own!

I found another recipe that uses 1C of cold white wine instead of water (variations I've found is 1/2C water in 4 lb pork, 5 lb pork or a full cup of white wine in 5 lb). Nice way to experiment.

One thing though: never add a product (ie white wine in this case) to a recipe if you would never eat/drink that product on it's own.

Sounds awesome. I need to make more sausage but it can be quite a production. I made some andouille last time and it turned out great. I think that one did have some water and a cure. My first sausage I winged the recipe and used just salt and pepper and all beef and beef fat and no water and it turned out kind of blah.

With this recipe, the garlic and smoke are really "in your face" (other spices just compliment everything else). In fact, I'm trying to find a storage method that will contain these aromas from permeating everything in its path. The freezer (it's double bagged without any noticeable decline in aroma) or the fridge, it just overwhelms everything. Thankfully, it doesn't affect other foods (yet) like milk.